Church Stuff

Lilly is doing better. She got her hair cut and dyed it red and I took her shopping. We read the bible a few nights--just went through the proscribed lessons for the daily evening prayer. One from the old testament last Thursday was pretty frightening--"destroy their altars and put their sons to the sword" (!)
"It says that?"
"Oh, yeah."
Well, Christianity, the way it's practised here, has very violent tendencies. Back to Shambhala Sun--there's a GREAT interview with Tom Robbins--to quote "...I'd completey rejected my Southern Baptist faith on the grounds that it was a bastion of fascist-tinged hypocrisy, based on misinterpretation of Levantine myth and watered-down compromises of the teachings of Jesus." Then he goes on to say that "U.S. foreign policy is now based on the apocalyptic Book of Revelation, which is to say, based on the ravings of a long-dead misogynistic madman." And: "As sentient beings, as a part of the One, the fundamentalist spawn of John deserve our compassion, but because they increasingly imperil all life on the planet, they must also be vigorously opposed."
I'm not sure about that comment about U.S. policy--I think U.S. policy is mainly about taking care of the interests of the rich. But what's new about that? The world's the world. Render unto Ceasar and all that. I think that certainly fundamentalist symbols and ideals have been rather cynically employed to get the people behind the effort.
Basically, I trust those from all faiths who serve. If they serve, if they give, if their primary motivation is to alleviate the suffering of all mankind, I find everything in common with them. It's when people become removed from basic ministry that hypocrisy sets in. There is one true religion--compassion. All the rest is just gabble gabble.
That said, I love my church.
Alice and I are knitting our friendship together again. We had an argument in May. She invited me to meditate with her this morning. We had coffee at the Dakota after we dropped the kids off at school. She's on the vestry, so she has a key. After our coffee, we walked down the street to our little stone church and opened the door.
"It's just terrible they keep it closed all the time," she says, fishing for her key in her purse.
This is always a process with Alice. Alice is a doctor. God knows how she got through medical school. She now practices plant spirit medicine, but she's good for a course of amoxicillin if you need it, and does the occasional basketball physical for my kids. The plant spirit stuff must be working, however, because Alice actually seems to be getting younger. Or else she's taken a lover, which was my suggestion. She's looking reallly, really good lately. She's lost about 30 pounds and gotten a haircut and instead of these sort of shapeless smocks with big buttons, she's been wearing long gypsy skirts and black t-shirts. Her hair, which is very thick and gray, seems shinier and she has it cut right above her shoulders so that it swings when she walks.
They used to keep the church open all the time--all night. When we were teens and would be out late downtown drinking, we'd go into the church and crash in the lounge, rather than drive home drunk and face our parents. It was a safe way to be wild. I think that's an attitude sort of missing in our society these days--giving our kids safe ways to be wild. Now we just crush the wildness out of their little hearts.
We go into the sanctuary, the lovely cool dark cherry wood sanctuary, with the needlepoint cushions lovingly made by generations of church ladies and sit. Alice has brough an egg timer. She's hard to sit with, because she fidgets a lot, but it's okay. I sit, think mostly about work.
The timer goes off.
"I don't think that was very successful." She muses.
"Supposedly," I offer, "if you can manage to concentrate on 12 breaths in a row, you will instantly achieve enlightenment."
"That's doable. I'm glad you told me that. Have you done that?"
"Do I seem enlightened to you? All I do is think about work."
She's having some regrets, I think. She tells me about an old boyfriend of hers whom she dumped because of his lack of ambition.
"All he did was collect coffee percolators."
Seems useful to me. Better than irons.
Apparently, he had come to visit them last week. He amassed the definitive collection of coffee percolators in the world and has sold the collection for $2,000,000 (in this economy!) and published a beautiful coffee table book--all about coffee percolators. Sigh. Finally, a book you can set your coffee on top of. Haha.
"No ambition, indeed!" I say, laughing.
We wander out into the foyer. The church staff has come in now, and the building is properly open. Ancient bent Beth Fritz is at the desk. She's the receptionist. For awhile, she was the town's only anti-war activist. She would stand outside the post-office every Saturday with her little sign, protesting whatever military action our country was involved in. Everybody would stop by--"Hello, Beth!" We're pretty friendly about our divisions in Little Dixie. Now there are more, and they protest on the corner of Providence every Wednesday. But, I mean, that takes some gumption, getting out there by the post-office every Saturday morning. She also was the first white person in our state to adopt a black child.
The big news going on in our town is that a woman killed herself and her children, afraid of going to a foster home, tried to keep her death a secret. They were naturally caught, then initially accused of killing her. Apparently, they didn't. How frightened they must have been. How grief stricken and terrified.
We all discuss this a moment. I knew the woman vaguely (well, you grow up here, you end up knowing every one).
Beth shakes her head, "Those poor kids. Hiding a body is a lot more difficult than you think it's going to be...they get stiff and heavy so fast"
Alice and I nod sympathetically, not daring to look at each other, pick up our church directories and leave.
Outside, we start giggling.
"You heard that, right?"
"I don't even want to know..."
That's my 1/2 hour.